The entry begins:
People often say to me "That story is incredible - why doesn't someone make a documentary or a movie about it." I usually brush it off politely, because I know the story to be too complex or to require too much back-story to be make any sense to someone who hadn't already read the book. This is often the problem with non-fiction; the story, or parts of it, might be incredible but to remain true to the known facts you can't just adjust the story for length or dramatic impact, or make characters more admirable or likeable.Learn more about the book and author at Stephen R. Bown's website and Facebook page.
My latest book The Last Viking was no exception. Roald Amundsen is chiefly known for beating the British Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole in 1911. But in a remarkable career that spanned decades he also sailed the famed and feared Northwest Passage, sailed the Northeast Passage and then turned to airplanes when he couldn’t get his ship through the ice to the North Pole. Then he died mysteriously when his bi-plane disappeared into a fog bank on a rescue mission for another Polar explorer in 1928. I discovered hundreds of interviews, profiles and articles in the New York Times archives that revealed an entirely new aspect of his personality and showed that he was a famous celebrity in the United States for at least ten years before he died. He travelled the country delivering amusing and exciting slide lectures to audiences that included the political and cultural elite and was frequently in the news. How do you put all that into a 2 hour film?
Amazingly, I recently read that a major Hollywood movie is being planned featuring Amundsen...[read on]
My Book, The Movie: The Last Viking.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
